Mustangs 1st at Naperville Invite!

The DGS girls cross country team traveled to Naperville North HS for a rare Friday night meet on Sept.21. The Mustangs came home with 1st team titles on both the varsity and F/S levels in the 10-team invitational meet. In the F/S race, DGS scored 30 points to easily out-distance the host Naperville North team in 2nd place (52 pts). DGS placed 1-3-5-7-14, and Sophia McNerney (Fr) led the Mustangs with her individual championship, covering the 3-mile campus course in 19:11. Sophia took the lead about 800m into the race and never looked back, finishing about 20 seconds ahead 2nd place. Renee Kowalski (Fr) was the next Mustang into the chute. She placed 3rd overall in 19:54, while Ria Patel (So) and Sara Homberg (Fr) placed 5th and 7th respectively in 20:04 and 20:09. Gretchen Scheck (Fr) rounded out the Mustang scoring with her 14th place finish in 20:32. Sophomores, Maya Scheck and Olivia Meyer were the 6-7 runners for DGS with times of 20:40 and 21:10 as they finished in 18th and 30th place out of 178 total runners. This bodes well for the future of Mustang cross country as two other DGS freshmen and one sophomore competed in the varsity race.

The DGS varsity team also dominated the competition, placing 1st as a team with 36 points. Naperville North, the top ranked team in Illinois, rested their top 6 runners but still finished in 2nd place with 68 points against a quality field that included #16 ranked Benet Academy. DGS placed its 8 runners in the among the top 16 finishers in the 78 runner race. Erin Reidy (Jr) led the Mustangs with her 2nd place finish, 25 seconds behind Iowa City Liberty freshman, Ashlyn Keeney. Reidy ran a PR 17;34 as she moved up through the field over the second half of the race to eventually reach the second position. Brenna Cohoon (Jr) did not have her best race, but still showed a lot of toughness with her 3rd place finish in 17:44. The Mustangs were without one of their top 3 runners, Melissa Weidner (Sr), who was out of town on a college visit. But the team is deep with talent this season and didn’t miss a beat as Becky Versaskas (Sr) finished in 8th place overall with a time of 18:17. The remaining five Mustangs in the race ran together as a tight pack for most of the race and all finished close together. Kennedy Warden (Jr) was 11th (18:20), Olivia Duax (Sr) was 12th (18:25), Rebecca Diddia (So) was 13th (18:29), Kelsey Casella (Fr) was 14th (18:30), and Alex Spang (Fr) was 16th (18:31). After taking last weekend off, this was a good tune-up for next week’s varsity meet in Minnesota.

The JV team finished off the day with a solid team race, finishing 3rd behind Naperville North and Naperville Central. Allison Calek (Sr) led the Mustangs with her 5th place finish in a season best 19:48. Michelle Kurcina (Sr) placed 11th overall in the 186 runner race with a time of 20:20. Julie LaLonde (Sr) finished in 15th place with her time of 20:30. After the trio of DGS seniors, there was a significant gap back to the next Mustang, Sydney Gaspari (Jr) who finished in 43rd place in 21:59. Teagan Halik (Sr) moved up a lot over the second half of the race to finish as the 5th DGS scorer in 47th place in 22:06. Clare Quirin (Sr) and Grace Schultheis (Jr) were the 6-7 runners in 60th and 82nd places with times of 22:39 and 23:31 respectively.

The freshman Mustangs will travel to Leyden on Monday, Sept.24 to compete in a conference triangular. The varsity will travel to Minneapolis next weekend for the Roy Griak Invitational hosted by the University of Minnesota. The entire team will return to Naperville North on October 3rd for the Twilight Invite.